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thiswasatriumph's review
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I am thinking of this book in terms of windows and mirrors, and in conversation with my wife who read it before me. I am on the other side of this equation: my family own land belonging to the Miami and benefited from the policies of removal and genocide. I live on unceded Dakota land. And yet those miseries inflicted upon people like Jesse's family failed to make mine happy. The destruction of their culture has impoverished mine. We lack stories, our memories extending no further than a single human lifetime. I have worked, like Jesse, to recover lost memories, though my methods are less profound and affecting. The results of my work mean much to me, but they are like the twined-tied boxes. Very little of my work speaks to me, and none of it speaks past me. I worry that it will be my life gathering only for another dispersal because my people do not care about their history. No one is trying to destroy it, though it is precious. We discard it as rubbish. What have we gained for all this suffering inflicted? How can we move forward?
Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Forced institutionalization, Body horror, Child death, and Genocide
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Violence, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Confinement, Rape, Child abuse, and Slavery
Minor: Alcoholism, Abandonment, Alcohol, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Panic attacks/disorders, and Racial slurs
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